Greg's Corner

Cash flipping isn’t a real thing

If you’ve never heard of the company Square, they are innovators in the mobile payment space. Before Square, if a merchant wanted to be able to accept debit and credit card payments they needed an expensive and complicated system to do so. Now, thanks to Square, all a merchant may need is a tablet with Square’s dongle attached to it to process debit and credit card payments. Square also has a service for consumers called the Cash App. It’s a mobile payment system that is in the same vein as Venmo. And of course, when there’s a tool for money to change hands there are people looking to get their hands on that money.

The Cash App has giveaways on Fridays that they call #CashAppFridays. If you follow that hashtag on Twitter or Instagram you could be eligible for a cash prize from Cash. This has spawned several Cash App imitators hijacking the hashtag claiming that they can give you money if you just pay them a little bit of money in a practice known as cash flipping. For example, these imitators will say they work for Cash App and can get you $500 if you give them $50. Other Cash App imitators will try to direct you to a phony website that looks like it’s run by Cash App but in reality, they’re just trying to get your Cash App login credentials in a phishing attempt.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8nqp7Eq7O4%5D

This brings two adages to mind, ‘if it’s too good to be true it probably is’ and ‘there’s no such thing as a free lunch’. No one is going to give you more money if you pay them money for this scam. They’re simply going to bait their victims into sending a large amount of money before disappearing. You wouldn’t hand money to a stranger on the street who said they’ll give you $500 if you give them $50, so why give it to some stranger on the internet? These apps should only be used for exchanging money between friends and family. If a random stranger online is asking you for money through these apps, it’s almost guaranteed to be a scam.